[pp.int.general] Pirates and election thresholds!

[Rickard Olsson]

Christian Hufgard skrev:
>
> court confirmed the threshold also, due to the possible problems in
> forming a stable gouvernment, if there would be more than just a few
> parties in the gouvernment.
I believe you meant "parliament" in that last sentence.

Some kind of threshold is probably a good thing to avoid getting a dozen 
one-man parties into parliament, but a too large threshold robs a 
potentially large section of the voters from representation. It's a 
balance. I'd guess that somewhere between 1 and 4% is a reasonable 
threshhold, depending on the size of the parliament.

OTOH, we sometimes hear that voting for a party that won't get into 
parliament is a waste of a vote. I usually respond that,voting for a 
party and issues that are already represented in parliament is really 
wasting your vote as that does not change anything. ;-)


/ Richie